Good morning. Your company may be about to get disrupted — unless you get there first. The federal government is starting to make public data available in apps and easy-to-access web APIs. The intention is to make it easier to interact with federal agencies, but the reform will also make it easier for anyone to build an information-based business. And that could be a threat to any established company.

Take DrillingInfo, which provides information that helps oil companies spot the most promising places to drill. Its CEO, Allen Gilmer, admits the data is already available, but it’s a laborious task to compile. “It’s a big old mess of data collection,” he says. Fast-forward to a world where the data is less of a mess, he tells CIO Journal, and “I think we would have a lot more competition from propeller heads – smart guys in their backyard.”

The potential applications for data from agencies as disparate as the Department of Transportation and Department of Labor are endless, and will affect businesses in every industry imaginable. Including yours. But if you can think of how that data could let someone disrupt your business, you can stop that from happening by getting there first.

The LinkedIn breach is a warning of cloud complacency. LinkedIn’s loss of more than 6 million passwords is bad enough, but the fact they were easily deciphered shows a stunning lack of care for software security, and should serve notice to business customers of cloud-based services that they shouldn’t assume vendors are “doing it right,” noted software expert Gary McGraw tells CIO Journal. McGraw said “when you decide to use somebody else’s solution, like software-as-a-service, including social networking solutions, then you have to ask them some questions about how they’re doing security.”

Cloud computing benefits from tech labor shortage. Sanjay Bhatia, CEO of Izenda, a company that embeds analytics features in applications that run on Microsoft platforms, says business IT departments can’t turn projects around quickly enough because they can’t find enough staff. That’s forcing business users to turn to cloud service providers — and as the LinkedIn fiasco illustrates, bad things can happen when someone from IT isn’t watching the hen house. Hourly rates for software engineers with certain skills have doubled over the past two years, Bhatia tells CIO Journal, to $120 per hour.

Start-up helps businesses contain cloud spending. Renting infrastructure from a cloud provider such as Amazon is a way for businesses to expand and contract their capacity as needed, thereby reducing costs. But some companies are still overspending on cloud, an opportunity Cloudyn CEO Sharon Wagner is seizing upon with his new venture, a company that provides tools for calculating cloud usage needs and recommending appropriate spending levels. According to Wagner, typical Amazon customers overspend on AWS by 40%. “The more cloud adoption increases within enterprises, CIOs and CFOs must have business solutions to manage their cloud,” Wagner tells CIO Journal.

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Apple may be planning Mac revamp. Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off June 11, and the rumor mill has been steadily revolving. The latest reports suggest the company is planning to announce a major refresh of its computers, including possible versions of the ultrathin MacBook Air with high definition Retina displays currently found on the iPhone and iPad tablet, reports eWEEK’s Nathan Eddy.

Google monitors the monitors.Google has launched a new security function that warns Gmail users of government attempts to access their accounts. Several Chinese activists reported seeing one such warning on Wednesday and as the WSJ’s Paul Mozor and Loretta Chao report, Google’s move could add to tensions with China and other countries that keep a tight rein on Internet content.

Tech companies tout job ecosystem that includes yoga instructors. As part of an effort to dispel criticism over outsourcing, domestic tech companies and policy groups are pushing several bullish job creation reports, reports the WSJ’s Jessica E. Vascellaro. A recent Apple job report, created by Analysis Group, credits Apple with supporting 304,000 jobs in the U.S., “including the FedEx employees who ship its gadgets and the health-care workers who support Apple employees.“ Another report includes yoga instructor employment in its tech job roundup. A professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto says assigning service sector jobs to specific companies is impossible. “You have to take it all with a grain of salt,” he says.

Nasdaq apologies for Facebook flub. Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld apologized for the system glitches that plagued Facebook’s May 18 public offering telling the WSJ’s Jenny Strasburg that he and his staff have undergone “an entirely clinical, analytical” review of the events that delayed the IPO opening and kept brokers in the dark for hours as to the status of their trades. “Clearly we didn’t succeed here,” he said. Nasdaq yesterday also outlined a plan to pay brokers $40 million for losses caused by the IPO.

Worst. Passwords. Ever.Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin takes a look at some of the 8 million passwords leaked from the LinkedIn security breach and—no surprise here—finds the usual suspects of truly awful passwords including 123456, 1234567, linkedinpassword and…you get the picture. To access the passwords, Brodkin accessed a new site called LeakedIn that allows users to check to see if their password was hacked. It’s a reminder that cyber security needs to be taught, over and over again.

Apple seeks U.S. ban on Samsung’s latest smartphone. Apple has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. requesting a sales ban on Samsung Electronics’s latest smartphone, the Galaxy S III. But the Korean electronics company said it still plans to launch the new smartphone in the U.S. later this month and said the latest move by the iPhone maker “would only serve to disrupt consumers’ access to the latest innovative mobile technology,” the WSJ reports.

Companies hope to solve spectrum crunch with new tech. As carriers fret over running out of spectrum to carry an ever-increasing load of wireless calls and data, companies are looking at a variety of technologies that could improve efficiency, reports Brian X. Chen of the New York Times. Cognitive radio which scans the spectrum for open frequencies, and smart antennas that reduce spectrum congestion by directing energy at phones, are among the options being considered by a presidential advisory committee, which includes executives from Microsoft and Google. Carriers say the new technology sounds nice, but they would much rather the government hand out more spectrum.

We have planes. How about you, Apple? With Apple expected to unveil its own mapping service in the very near future, Google hosted a press gathering in San Francisco to announce expanded 3-D image mapping and maps for Android devices that don’t require an Internet connection. The WSJ’s Amir Efrati observes the event “appeared aimed at showing how much Google had invested in improving the service over the past seven years and implying that it would be difficult to replicate.” Those investments include a fleet of planes to provide 3-D coverage.

RIM readies Franken-phone. Every smartphone features licensed technology from other companies, but the next generation BlackBerry from RIM is a “patchwork of hardware and software obtained quietly through about a dozen acquisitions and multiple licensing deals,” writes the Journal’s Will Connors. Making all these components work seamlessly will be challenge enough, but combine this with an entirely new operating system, and you have some nervous analysts. “It’s almost too many things to integrate at the same time,” Maribel Lopez, principal analyst at Lopez Research, tells the WSJ.

Apple looks at more China stores. Apple wants to open two more stores in the Chinese cities of Chengdu and Shenzen, government officials tell Reuters. While the move ups Apple’s brick and mortar presence in mainland China by almost 50%, it leaves open the possibility of more legal trouble with a lawyer representing a Shenzhen-based company claiming that it trademarked the iPad name. The company also faces the problem of piracy and unauthorized resellers in less wealthy cities. Apple has three stores in Shanghai and two in Beijing.

Busy summer for health industry CIOs. The Supreme Court’s decision at the end of this month on Obamacare could make for a busy summer for health IT professionals, writes InformationWeek’s Marianne Kolbasuk McGee. A rejection of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will require IT to re-prioritize spending on programs such as new health insurance marketplaces and direct it elsewhere.

Android to lose share to Microsoft? Market research firm IDG sees Android smartphones peaking in 2012 at 61% market share before declining in 2016 to 53% as Microsoft’s share rises to 19%. Apple’s iOS share is predicted to remain consistently at or near 20% of the smartphone market.

Not a good sign for Facebook (cont.). FB shares are attracting more attention from short sellers betting that Facebook’s fortunes will continue to fall on Wall Street. Bloomberg’s Lu Wang cites data showing that short interest reached 5.9% of shares outstanding, higher by almost three percentage points than other companies with a market cap of at least $50 billion.

Microsoft locks out HTC. Don’t expect an HTC device running the next generation of the Windows OS. Bloomberg reports that Microsoft has cut the Taiwanese company out of product development, with sources saying that the software maker doubted HTC’s ability to move products. HTC was a partner in Microsoft’s earlier mobile efforts, but the company has most recently seen its value drop as Apple and Samsung Electronics dominate device manufacturing.

Twitter’s bluebird mascot takes over. Some six years after launching the service, the social-networking company today has dropped “twitter” in bubbly text as a logo, and instead wants its partners and the media to only use the bluebird mascot, the design of which was also tweaked, Bloomberg’s tech blog reports. The new version is a slightly different shade of blue, facing more upward rather than level and without the tuft of hair atop its head.

They aren’t as optimistic as they were earlier, but they still plan to boost their full-time domestic work force by 2.5% on average over the next 12 months. If all U.S. companies hired like that — a big if — it would bump the unemployment rate down to 7% by the end of the year. That sounds awfully upbeat considering the dismal May jobs report, but the main reason for hiring is that their work forces are stretched to the breaking point. And survey director John Graham notes that the government data is backward looking (and is just a one-month snapshot), while the CFOs were thinking about the coming 12 months.

Big companies delay payments. Small businesses are waiting longer for commercial customers to pay their bills as many big companies continue to hoard cash to bolster their own working capital, the Journal’s Angus Loten says. A recent study found that businesses earlier this spring were paying bills an average of 7.6 days past due, a 14.1% increase from the same period last year. The biggest companies had the sharpest increase in late-payment days, up nearly 28%. That’s hitting small businesses hard because they have fewer resources and less access to loans.

Oil companies probe bribery allegations. Anonymous allegations of improper payments to Kazakh customs officials by an exploration joint venture have sparked investigations at Eni, Chevron and BG Group, the WSJ reports. Companies whose shipments are seized by Kazakh customs inspectors can appeal to an administrative court. But that can take months and often means penalties. But “economic extortion is not a defense to the FCPA,” said Martin Weinstein, a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

EUROPEAN DEBT CRISIS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Spanish bank rescue on the horizon. European officials are considering a bailout program for Spain that would boost banking sector while imposing only “very limited conditionality” on Madrid, a concession that could make a reluctant Spanish government more willing to accept international assistance, the FT reports [registration req'd]. The proposed rescue would require few austerity measures beyond reforms already agreed with the EU and “could even dispense with the close monitoring by international lenders that has proved contentious in Athens and Dublin.”

China wealth fund gets more bearish on Europe. The head of China’s sovereign-wealth fund sees mounting risks of a breakup of the euro zone, and says China Investment Corp. has scaled back its holdings of stocks and bonds across Europe, the WSJ reports. The comments by CIC Chairman Lou Jiwei are among the most bearish yet on Europe by a senior Chinese official. “They reflect growing dismay in Beijing at how European leaders are handling the escalating crisis in China’s largest export market, and anxiety over the potential for global contagion.”

The factors that render the electrical grid vulnerable to cyber attack are strikingly similar to the cyber risk issues faced by health care, financial services, and other industries. But one recent malware campaign targeting utilities shows just how exposed the grid remains to cyber threats.